Let’s build a Micro-Clubhouse using Glide and Jam
In this tutorial we are going to build our own Micro-Clubhouse using Glide.
Create a new Glide app
We start with a completely new app in Glide.
Add a new Glide table called “Rooms”
We need a place to store the rooms for our app. Go to the Tables view in the top navigation and create a new (“+”) table. You can pick your own name for the table but we’ll go with “Rooms” here.
Add a column called “ID”
Every room has its own “ID”. Here we use a basic column type of “Text”.
Note: Glide has very useful special column type “Row ID” that almost does what we want (a unique ID per row in the table). Unfortunately “Row ID” is not fully compatible with the IDs that Jam expects. That’s why we are using the “Text” basic column type instead.
Add a column called “URL”
Next we are adding a “URL” column that we can later use for embedding our Jam rooms.
The “Construct URL” column type lets us add custom query parameters to the URL. It even takes care of properly encoding the values!
Since Glide gives us access to the user name and user photo of the active Glide user we can add them as query parameters identity.name and identity.avatar for Jam. This allows Jam to display the name and avatar for each user that joins the Jam room.
Last but not least we are adding the room.stageOnly parameter with the value true to make sure we get Jam rooms that can be joined “on stage”. These rooms are a great fit for Micro Conferences and small scale events.
Note: You can also add other query parameters to customize the look and feel as well as the behaviour of Jam rooms. For an overview of available configuration options take a look at our documentation.
Hallway tab
Next we can work on the ui for our “Hallway”. Select “Rooms” as Source for the tab and pick the style you are looking for (e.g. “List”, “Tiles” or “Cards”).
Action: Open web view
To embed the Jam room select “Open web view” as Action and “URL” as Target in the sidebar.
Note: If you are on a Glide paid plan you have even more settings for how to embed Webviews. See Webview Component in the Glide Documentation
This is how the embedded Jam room looks like within Glide.
Optional: Allow Users to add Rooms
We can also allow users to add rooms by enabling the “Add Form”.
Here we can customize the form for adding Rooms.
Note: We use the “Unique Identifier” Column type for our “ID” column.
Optional: Only show Hallway if User Name and User Photo are set
We can hide the hallway until the user has set a name and a photo.
Hallway Tab => Options => Visibility
Add both rules as “is not empty” and select “And” to combine them.
Potential Improvements
Congratulations, you now have your own Micro-Clubhouse in Glide.
This also means that whatever you plan to do next: you have the whole Glide platform to support you. Want to add scheduling? An agenda? User roles? Access to rooms depending on membership? Notifications? A map of a conference venue? You can!
Troubleshooting and Success
Have trouble adding Jam to your Glide app?
Successfully added Jam and want to let us know?
Let us know!
Join the Jam community on our discord server or join our weekly Jam Jam.
